| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "If she doesn't you don't love her," said Lawton. "But my Eudora
IS that."
"That is a queer-sounding Greek name."
"She is Greek, like her name. Such beauty never grows old. She
stands on her pedestal, and time only looks at her to love her."
"I thought you were a business man as hard as nails," said the
young man, wonderingly. Lawton laughed.
When Thursday came, Lawton, carefully dressed and carrying a long
tissue-paper package, evidently of roses, approached the Yates
house. It was late in the afternoon. There had been a warm day,
and the trees were clouds of green and more bushes had blossomed.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: sure was at the back of Mrs. Jordan's head; and to get it out of
her, queerly enough, if only to vent a certain irritation at it.
She knew that what her friend would already have risked if she
hadn't been timid and tortuous was: "Give him up--yes, give him
up: you'll see that with your sure chances you'll be able to do
much better."
Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put
before her with a particular sniff for poor Mr. Mudge she should
hate it as much as she morally ought. She was conscious of not, as
yet, hating it quite so much as that. But she saw that Mrs. Jordan
was conscious of something too, and that there was a degree of
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: She hesitated, and it was as if he were pressing her so hard that,
resisting for reasons of her own, she had to turn away. "I'll tell
you some other time!"
CHAPTER II
It was after this that there was most of a virtue for him, most of
a cultivated charm, most of a preposterous secret thrill, in the
particular form of surrender to his obsession and of address to
what he more and more believed to be his privilege. It was what in
these weeks he was living for - since he really felt life to begin
but after Mrs. Muldoon had retired from the scene and, visiting the
ample house from attic to cellar, making sure he was alone, he knew
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: more time than the inability to give proper security to persons from
whom you seek to borrow money when, poor at the moment, you are
nevertheless rich in hope?"
"Money,--yes, that's right," said Margaritis.
"Well, Monsieur, I am sent into the departments by a company of
bankers and capitalists, who have apprehended the enormous waste which
rising men of talent are thus making of time, and, consequently, of
intelligence and productive ability. We have seized the idea of
capitalizing for such men their future prospects, and cashing their
talents by discounting--what? TIME; securing the value of it to their
survivors. I may say that it is no longer a question of economizing
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